Today, numerous naval forces worldwide face a complex array of military and civilian challenges. Possessing a national navy is not only a matter of prestige, but absolutely critical to a country’s self-defence. Few countries in the world have the research, engineering and manufacturing capabilities to independently design and build warships. The Severnoye Design Bureau has been successfully working in this area for almost 60 years.

The Severnoye Design Bureau now offers the Project 21956 class destroyer with an approximate displacement of 9,000 tons. The ship is designed to counteract surface combatants and submarines, support anti-submarine and air defence operations of ships and vessels in ocean and sea areas in surface groups and task forces.

The ship solves the following combat tasks:

combat operations in ocean and sea areas against the main hostile naval forces

observation of tactical surface and underwater situation and collection of data for employment of strike missile and anti-submarine weapons

automated support to helicopters of naval aviation, included in the forces, to detect hostile surface and underwater forces and employment of strike missile and anti-submarine weapons

destruction of hostile surface combatants, vessels and landing means

air and anti-boat defence of ships and transports

preparation and analysis of tactical situation in real time

fire support to landing forces

patrolling and combat service jointly with other ships.

DESIGN

The ship’s hull is designed with a short forecastle and round bilge hull shape. There are two knuckles on the surface part of the hull: the first starts from the transom and is hidden one-quarter of ship’s length from the fore; the second passes under the forecastle at the upper deck level. The aft part of the transom is substantially forward-inclined making the ship’s silhouette streamlined. Hull lines and a sharp stem provide the best sea keeping abilities. The structure and strength of the hull, armament, machinery, gears, systems and hull fittings do not restrict safe navigation of the ship during storms with running and heading allowed as per navigability conditions.

To improve navigability, conditions of armament use, and crew comfort, a stabiliser with fixed rudders is used on the Project 21956 ship. When compared to the earlier applied stabilisers, with retractable rudders, the new stabiliser is in the form of a single unit taking up much less space in the ship’s compartments.

Navigability of the ship with the operating stabiliser allows use of armament and machinery without limitations at up to Sea State 5 levels.

Magazines for storage of strike and anti-aircraft guided missiles are located in the aft and fore parts of the ship, under the deck with added structural protection for the magazines.

Optimal arrangement of radars on the foremast and mainmast enables the ship’s radars to be used to their maximum tactical and technical capacities.

A hangar and helo deck for landing and storing a helicopter weighing up to 12.5 tons are provided in the aft part of the ship.

There is a bulb dome in the fore part of the ship, where the sonar system is located, for the detection of submarines and torpedoes.

The ship’s futuristic design is defined by new developments with the armament systems, aimed at further increasing their efficiency by limiting their mass and size. This is crucial as it enables a ship of this class to be kept in a set displacement range. Other design achievements have been made in the ship’s power engineering, stealth characteristics.

FIELDS

Physical fields of the ship have been minimised to increase its stealth characteristics. Concerning its surface parts, a decrease in the radar cross section (RCS) has been provided through a new special hull and superstructure architecture design. Because of this, the RCS has decreased several times in comparison with ships of similar class with traditional architectures. This has decreased the ship’s detection range by hostile radars while increasing the operational efficiency of its active and passive electronic warfare systems. Structural stealth measures, together with the use of electronic armament and antiaircraft -guided facilities, have substantially increased the ship’s protection against anti-ship missiles.

Arrangement of antennas of radio-technical facilities and firing systems has been implemented taking into account the necessity of provision of scanning patterns. To provide electromagnetic compatibility of radars and control systems for anti-aircraft guided and artillery systems, an electronic suppression system that protects all the ship’s radio-technical facilities has been installed.

COMBAT SYSTEM

Planning automation and centralisation of a joint safe weapon deployment system are one of the most important factors in the improvement of combat control. This allows to maximally use its combat capabilities and to improve efficiency of weapon joint deployment. To solve these tasks a Combat Management System (CMS) has been installed onboard the ship. This system enables information exchange with surface and airborne weapon carriers. Collection and distribution of operational information between specific addressees is also carried out by the CMS. The main feature of the new CMS is its use of a wide computer network with reserve information buses that provide a higher degree of survivability when compared to ordinary centralised computer systems.

Apart from provision of combat task solutions, the system is easy to maintain and easy to operate for crew. This requirement is met by means of simulators designed for crew training, general system monitoring, automation of weapon control systems and effective communications.

TACTICAL SITUATION DISPLAY

Airborne and surface targets can be detected by multi-purpose Fregat and Rif-M type radars fitted with phased-array antennas.

The Poima-E integrated system for processing radar information was acquired for outputting target distribution and target designation data to the ship’s weapons. Surface targets can be detected by the Mineral-ME radar system, Ka-31 helicopter, navigation radar and two electro-optical sights. Underwater targets can be detected by the Zarya-ME-03 sonar system, Vinyetka-ME system and Ka-28 antisubmarine helicopter.

WEAPONRY

The principal strike missile weapon of the Project 21956 ship is the integrated Club-N missile system designed for defeating large surface targets at large ranges.

The Club-N comprises the under-deck, 3S-14E vertical launch systems for 16 -54E type missiles and the 3R-14N fire control system.

The system’s capabilities are as follows:

Large range (up to 220 km) enabling it to combine tactical and operational capabilities as well as performing a containment function

The combat stage is separated at the flight speed of no less than 700 m/sec and flight elevation at approach to target within 5-10 metres

High probability of cruise missile (CM) 3-54E self-vectoring at the final section of the flight, homing head high interference protection and its selectivity

Ability to select CM flight route including direction of CM approach to target

For firing against all types of submarines, the ship is provided with two missile-torpedo launchers that accommodate 91RE1 anti-submarine missiles or UGST or UETT universal torpedoes.

Employment of 91RE1 (91RE2) anti-submarine missiles as part of the Club-N integrated missile system broadens submarines access zone while maintaining quite high destruction probability which increases combat facilities when solving anti-submarine defence tasks of for protected ships.

91RTE2 anti-submarine vertical missiles can be arranged in the unified 3S-14E launcher. Whether 3-54TE or 91RTE2 missiles are loaded into launcher is defined by the ship’s combat employment tasks.

The integrated Club-N missile system’s incorporation of the ship’s 3R-14N firing control system enables it to control both strike and anti-submarine weapons as well as anti-torpedo weapons.

To repulse attacks from aircraft carriers at large ranges with the purpose of moving off employment line for air weapons, anti-aircraft and anti-ship cruise missiles, anti-radar missiles, Rif-M anti-aircraft guided missile system is fitted on the ship.

Missiles are launched from vertical launchers comprising six turrets, each designed for eight 48N6-2 type missiles with a strike range of up to 150 km, or for 32 9-96 type missiles with a strike range of 40 km (a packet of four 9-96 missiles is loaded instead of one 48N6-2 missile).

To repulse anti-ship missile attacks, the ship is fitted with the Kashtan- system that can hit targets 10km away.

To fire against sea and shore targets as well as to provide fire support for landing assault troops, the ship is equipped with 130mm-130 artillery system with a firing range of up to 23km.

To perform electronic warfare, the ship’s weaponry comprises the K-25E electronic warfare system and K-308-5 chaff launching system

MAIN PROPULSION PLANT

The total power of gas-turbine unit makes 74,000 hp (54,420 kW) that enables increase of the ship speed up to 30 knots. Cruise range is about 5,800 miles.

POWER PLANT

The ship’s power plant comprises four diesel generators with a total capacity of 5,000 kW and one autonomous diesel generator with 600Kw capacity for power supply to the ship’s gears, for controlling the vessel’s motion and control, for its weapon systems, damage control means and for the domestic needs of the crew.

ACCOMMODATION SPACES

Onboard accommodation (including for flight crews) provides resting space for approximately 300 crewmembers for 30 days at sea.

The futuristic Project 21956 destroyer is superior to similar class ships with the same combat capabilities. This is achieved by having installed new, integrated multi-functional weapon systems that meet the most modern technical, armament requirements for naval vessels today.

Engineering solutions used for the Project and high upgrading potential can form the basis to create new versions which take into consideration customer’srequirements at most.